Monday, April 27, 2015

Crime and punishment trivialized.

Joe Garagiola must be proud of his son, junior. Garagiola senior was a major league catcher and later major league funny man who got noticed from his annual appearance on the Jack Paar program during which he cracked up the baseball ignorant Paar.

Garagiola junior announced the disciplinary action by the Major Baseball League (MBL) in one of the three series in the previous seven days in which players engaged in violent and unethical behavior. It's pretty funny. Here is the official announcement in its entirety.

Discipline for Royals-White Sox incidentPress Release April 25, 2015Seven players have received discipline for their roles in the on-field incident in the bottom of the seventh inning of Thursday's game between the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, Major League Baseball announced today. Joe Garagiola, Jr., MLB's Senior Vice President of Standards & On-Field Operations, made the announcement.The following players have been disciplined for their actions leading up to and/or during the incident:· Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura has received a seven-game suspension;· Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez has received a five-game suspension;· Royals outfielder Lorenzo Cain has received a two-game suspension;· Royals pitcher Kelvin Herrera has received a two-game suspension;· White Sox pitcher Chris Sale has received a five-game suspension;· White Sox pitcher Jeff Samardzija has received a five-game suspension.All six players also received an undisclosed fine in addition to a suspension. In addition, White Sox catcher Tyler Flowers has received an undisclosed fine.Unless appealed, all suspensions are scheduled to be effective on Sunday, when the Clubs are to continue their series in Chicago. If any player elects to appeal, then his suspension will be held in abeyance until the process is complete.
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What roles? What behavior was considered unacceptable? We learned last night during the game on ESPN that Chris Sale had tried to gain entry to the Royals clubhouse to continue the violence.

Herrera is the guy who threw a 100 mph pitch behind an Oakland batter just a few days before.

And what about that Oakland - Kansas City series and the one between Baltimore and Toronto? It was difficult enough to find the above press release buried in mlb.com. Didn't Herrera get suspended from that? Where is the complete statement? Why must we rely on incomplete reports by non-league people?

And where was commissioner Manfred the A-Rod Slayer? Probably being open minded about all manner of junk. Maybe he should stand in the batter's box and let Herrera fire one at him. Then see how he reacts. And that goes double for all the media clowns who even implicitly approve of pitchers intentionally throwing at batters, often under such euphemisms as "pitching inside", "making him uncomfortable", "protecting their teammates", blah, blah, blah.

Rob Manfred, the commissioner who considers everything, consider this: your league is devolving into the National Hockey League (NHL). Wake the heck up and show some leadership before someone (player, fan, umpire, ...) is seriously hurt...

Commissioner Manfred, the A-Rod Slayer, where are you? The barbarians are inside the gates.________________________________